Trudeau plan: more of the same
Little daylight with Conservative policies
Conservatives have been annoyed and possibly a little impressed, at a purely tactical level, by Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s impolite refusal to give them a policy target at which they can open fire. Where’s the statist, mushy, taxand-spend latte-sipper when you need him? Ducking and covering in the corner. It’s a rope-a-dope, which the Liberals can be expected to continue at least until after the federal budget lands in April.
But there may be a bigger problem on the Harper government’s horizon than the lack of Liberal policy; and that is Liberal policy with which it finds it awkward to disagree.
In Calgary on Friday, with the country’s media and political establishment focused on Ottawa and the Supreme Court, Trudeau was in Calgary delivering a speech on carbon pricing that could as easily have been given, with a few tweaks, by Alberta Premier Jim Prentice (a Conservative and former federal environment minister), if not Stephen Harper himself, in one of his sunnier moods.
As he has previously noted, provinces representing 85% of the Canadian economy now either price carbon or intend to, with Ontario’s pending inclusion.
Mr. Trudeau then sketched a plan whereby Ottawa works with provinces and territories to set a national standard for carbon emission cuts, but leaves it to each to determine how.
If the Liberals form the government this fall, Mr. Trudeau pledged, such a system will unfold within 90 days of the conclusion of the United Nations climate change conference scheduled for December in Paris.
Of course there’s risk in this collective approach, which hasn’t been in evidence around Ottawa for oh, nine years: It’s cumbersome, messy, and there’s no guarantee the provinces will agree. Ottawa risks becoming, as Trudeau père acidly put it, a “head waiter to the provinces.”
But the historical models Trudeau fils cites are not inconsequential: The Canada Pension Plan, the National Child Benefit, the Gas Tax Fund and medicare. Plus, there’s this: It’s a pragmatic solution, if carbon is to be priced at all, given that the provinces, Alberta included, are already moving. If Stephen Harper himself were going to do this, this is how he would go about it.
The coded messages in the speech were intriguing. There were the repeated laudatory references to Prentice; there was the slam at Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s reviled National Energy Program, which we have heard before but which has been expanded for emphasis; and there was the assertion that “the federal government does not have all the answers.” It seems Mr. Trudeau proposes to purloin a Harper strategy that has mostly worked: his refusal to trample on areas of provincial jurisdiction, while abandoning one that hasn’t worked; his quixotic aversion to joining provincial and territorial leaders around a table.
As we look elsewhere across the policy spectrum, stitching together Mr. Trudeau’s speeches and remarks of the past two years with recent events, and adding a little sleuthing and some educated guesses, here’s what we find: more of the same. In every area there is a concerted effort to appeal to Canadians who have voted Conservative, though they may not always have done so.
Mr. Trudeau’s stated support for the anti-terrorist Bill C-51, obviously, is an effort to inoculate against the old Tory charge that he and they are “soft on terror.” With respect to Israel, there is virtually no daylight between Grits and Tories; Ukraine, no daylight. If and when the six-month air campaign against Islamic State comes back to Parliament for renewal, it will be surprising indeed if the Liberal party does not vote with the government, this time. A new veterans’ charter and defence procurement reform will round out the package.
In economic policy, the Liberals have signalled for months that they intend a tax cut that is broader, that is to say pleases more voters, than the Conservative income-splitting plan, which according to the C.D. Howe Institute leaves 85% of Canadian families with no added benefit. Older Conservatives will remember how tax cuts have no party loyalty; Paul Martin’s theft of that idea from the Canadian Alliance won Jean Chrétien his third majority.
In social policy the Liberals have legalized pot, their foursquare support for abortion rights, and now, thanks to the Supreme Court, the right to a doctor-assisted death. Though Mr. Trudeau has yet to pronounce himself on Friday’s decision overturning the Criminal Code prohibition, the 2014 Liberal policy conference declared itself in favour and there is compelling political logic for Mr. Trudeau to do the same. In all three areas, the Conservatives couldn’t readily oppose him without putting themselves offside of public opinion. The latter is something Harper has always avoided doing, whatever his personal views may be.
Here’s what it adds up to: For 10 years the Tories have been masters at tapping conservative-leaning public opinion, especially in seat-rich, suburban Toronto. The Liberals are aiming to win this vote block, and the election, with policy that is not so much a deviation from recent Canadian conservatism as it is an adjustment of it. The Conservatives will have one opportunity to answer this with some judicious idea-thievery of their own. That will be the budget, two months off.